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1 of 5The V6-powered 2013 Cadillac XTS Premium Collection is no autobahn-burner like its CTS and ATS siblings, but it's no slouch either.

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2 of 5The 2013 Cadillac XTS Premium Collection has a grille that isn't as aggressive as those found on other Cadillacs, but the car's distinctive style still stands out.

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3 of 5With just over 300 hp and a curb weight well over 4,000 pounds, you're not going to see the 2013 Cadillac XTS Premium Collection tearing up the track. Instead, you'll enjoy a fairly comfortable ride and good road isolation.

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4 of 5The CUE infotainment system on the 2013 Cadillac XTS Premium Collection earned mixed reviews, with some editors feeling its complexity overwhelmed the nice features it offered.

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5 of 5Overall, the 2013 Cadillac XTS Premium Collection is an ideal sedan for a buyer craving the feel of older, larger Cadillacs but wanting a more modern ride and improved construction quality.

Photo by Cadillac

EDITOR WES RAYNAL: This 2013 Cadillac XTS is a whole lot of car for the money in my opinion and a fine competitor to what? The Lincoln MKS, I suppose. I really like the XTS styling, a nice combination of subtlety mixed with the CTS' “art and science” design language. Where I find the smaller ATS rather dull or at least predictable, I think the XTS looks terrific. The interior is quite nice as well, though in this particular example it is sort of a mustard color that some people might need to get used to. Plenty of room though.

The power from the V6 in my opinion was just OK around town—this is a heavy car, though the six is smooth as are the shifts from the transmission. The steering is fine, weighing up nicely and I have always liked the magnetic ride on these Cadillacs, which offers up both a comfy ride and tautly controlled ride motions—for a car weighing 4,200 pounds it didn't feel floaty at all. Only occasionally did I feel a little harsher impact over a pothole.

As for the CUE system, I'm sure I didn't experience a quarter of the many capabilities. For what I did ask it to do, I thought CUE was fairly intuitive. The combination of buttons and touchscreen strikes a good balance to me, but I thought it took a little too much eyes-off-the-road focus to adjust things like climate and the radio stations. With practice I'm sure it'd be fine. I'm told you can practice on an iPad app which I think is a good idea. I vastly prefer it to Ford's Sync system, at least initially.

ASSOCIATE EDITOR JAKE LINGEMAN: I love it when I'm pleasantly surprised by a car, and it seems rare these days. The Cadillac XTS is one of the good ones.

On paper, I thought I would dislike it—medium V6 and more than 4,000 pounds—I don't like either of those things. But the execution is so spot-on; it's hard to complain about anything. But I will, a little.

If Caddy wants to compete with the big sports sedans it will need a rear-wheel drive V8 with power. And rumor has it one is in the works, based on the Holden Commodore aka Pontiac G8. So we're excited for that.

The XTS is exactly what a modern-day Caddy should feel like. The ride is supple, but not in the floaty way, like Wes said. It's soft but with a bit of firmness. Most bumps just roll under the tires with gentle thunk, only really big ones can be felt in the wheel. Steering is on point. It has a much better turn-in and much better turn radius than I expected. It definitely bordered on sporty. Speaking of sporty, I'd like a sport setting for suspension; you'll need one to compete in the world market. But otherwise, ride and handling, eight out of 10.

I love the mustard brown interior. It reminds me of cars much more upscale like Range Rovers. The seats were supportive, forgiving, and once I played with the lumbar adjustment, seriously comfortable. The telescoping wheel made finding the perfect driving position very easy.

The gauge cluster and steering wheel controls work well together and I like the customizable dash. The CUE system was a bit difficult with only one night behind the wheel. I do like the swiping functions, which remind me of a tablet. I'm sure it could do a lot more, but it will take some time to learn it.

This is another one of these cars with a serious light show during unlocking. I was walking up to it last night, hit the button and I had to cover my eyes, which were tuned for darkness. Each door handle lights up with a cool white light and the tails are blindingly red, at least at night. The interior lights up as well, giving the cabin a modern and clinical look at night. Also, love the white diamond paint, and I would pay the extra grand for it.

EXECUTIVE EDITOR BOB GRITZINGER: Take this as a sign of a drift into my 50s versus having just turned 50: Given a choice of bright-yellow Chevrolet Corvette Z06, Chevrolet Camaro ZL1 convertible or the Cadillac XTS for a long birthday weekend trip from Detroit to Chicago, I chose the XTS. Why? Myriad reasons, the biggest being that the XTS seemed likely to be the most comfortable cruiser for a long highway jaunt, not to mention that this non-descript white diamond model would be far less likely to attract unwanted law enforcement attention. Not that the car is dull, but of all the Cadillacs now on the market, the XTS is most likely to win the Lexus LS lookalike award, at least in profile. The front grille is still quite pronounced, and overall the car is handsome, but not in any way overdone or menacing.

Also on my list was the opportunity to spend multiple days living with Cadillac's new CUE interface. My take: It's not bad, performing well with voice commands, slow on some touch actions, whiz-bang cool in its proximity sensing, and generally easy to work with for most functions. It could use a simple volume knob, but where's the style in that when a wide, touch-sensitive chrome-accented control will do the same thing less effectively? I jest, only in part: CUE's biggest strength—its intuitive, iPad-mimicking interface—is also its weakness. Some systems work through a touch bar, some through the touchscreen and others through actual hard buttons, so it's not always clear what action is required to get a desired result. I do like that even though the navi screen has touchscreen zoom plus and minus buttons, one can merely squeeze or open two fingers on the screen to minimize or maximize the map view, like an iPad. Excellent. Overall, the mapping and other controls are handy and relatively easy to use, though sometimes buried inside other screens.

Another key part of the interface are the instruments—a three-ring circus of information all controlled via what some have dubbed the “Hershey bar” joysticks on the steering wheel (they sort of look like the well-known chocolate bars). Once mastered, the various buttons, paddles and Hershey bars make it easy to configure each instrument, adding or subtracting info for navigation, audio, and car systems.

As noted, this Cadillac is no autobahn-burner like its CTS and ATS siblings, but it's no slouch either. The V6, automatic and all-wheel-drive do a good job of getting the car moving, and while the ride is smooth, there's good body control so there's never a feeling that this is some big Cadillac whale from the past. Steering is steady without being over-reactive; brakes could use some extra feel and responsiveness, but on the other hand this isn't the place for touchy pedals, now is it?

Finally, while I was OK with having the seat give me a little bump in the thigh when I drifted out of my lane, not everybody will like the feeling—and it can be startling when driving in close quarters (like a parking garage) where the car seems to think everything is an unseen obstruction, causing the seat to nudge both thighs repeatedly. You can always shut the system off though, or set it on audio warning vs. active seat warning. I like the seat version—it's a reminder without being too obnoxious.

Overall, I give the XTS a thumbs-up as a perfect car for those who like the brand and its newer models, but would rather drive something with a big back seat and trunk—one with more in common with luxurious Caddys from the past. Or maybe just one for those of us now in our 50s.

SENIOR EDITOR MARK VAUGHN: Regardless of how splendid the rest of the car might have been, the GD haptic controls drove me insane. Note to Cadillac: Just because you saw it at a fancy booth at CES doesn't mean it's a good idea. While a number of commands can and probably should be transferred to some kind of touchscreen interface just so you can load them all in there, a few basic controls can and should still be done with a knob or a dial. I figure most drivers will do things like adjusting the volume or changing the radio station about 4,000 times a day. OK, less than that, but still a lot. So why not have a knob like cars have had since time immemorial? Why? Because we have a better system here! See? As soon as your hand gets near the unit, a whole bunch of controls light up! Ain't that somethin'? Then all you have to do is contact them at some indeterminable amount of pressure in exactly the right spot on the ill-defined screen and they work. Once, maybe twice, maybe three times to adjust the volume, for instance! Only they don't, see? You push the GD pseudo button on the screen and sometimes it does nothing, sometimes it does something, sometimes it does a whole bunch of stuff that maybe you didn't want it to do. If I'da' had a baseball bat why I'da'…

This CUE thing would be a deal killer for me. If it's true that the average Cadillac buyer was born—as I was—in the early Pleistocene, then that buyer is not going to appreciate this stuff. It drove me almost as crazy as any Infiniti, maybe equally so. I will acknowledge that if I lived with it for longer than a few days and studied the manual and went back to the dealership to find the one guy there who had mastered it and learned from him/her, then maybe I could utilize it to its full effect. However, why do this to yourself when the market offers cars for sale that do not drive you insane?

It'd be something if the 2013 Cadillac XTS was outstanding in other areas, but it is only average, maybe even below average. It has a small V6 driving all four wheels with what amounts to merely adequate power. It has just over 300 hp and weighs well over 4,000 pounds. This is not one of those Cadillacs you'll see John Heinricy drive in anger at the Nürburgring. Its ride quality was good. Noise and road bump isolation was good. It was comfortable enough to drive. I grew to enjoy the little seat bolster vibrating things that whirred to life when you strayed from your lane. But it was not worth the penalty of the crazy dashboard stuff. And was that a buzz coming from one of the rear speakers? A freakin' buzzy speaker? On a new Cadillac? For $57,725 there are lots and lots of other cars you could buy that have sorted out their driver interfaces (Audi A6? BMW 5-series? Mercedes-Benz E-class?). Heck, for $30,000 there are lots of great choices out there.

Do I sound like the old guy writing on a typewriter complaining about “these fancy new word processors”? Maybe I am, but how many of me are out there? Has the age of Cadillac's average buyer really dropped so far into the Apple iPhone generation that real buyers would like this? Hey, I own an iPhone, an iPad and I have wireless internet at home. I stream Netflix. I'm not a software engineer but neither am I a Luddite.

Maybe I just need to spend another week in an isolated garage in a Detroit suburb figuring out the damned dashboard.